The Other Hemisphere: Quick Thoughts on Time Spent Upside

Not only did I recently leave Chile, but I also came back: A feat several of my fellow gringos regarded with skepticism. Not because they´re knockin´this country (maybe some of them are) but because a person´s home is their home. It´s like no matter how well-starred the hotel, you´re always going to prefer your own bed. But here´s the funny thing- I was happy to come back. I wanted to come back. I was even a touch hesitant about leaving. Granted, I was estatic to see my family and friends and use honey mustard, but absent was the euphoria and sheer delight I assumed awaited me at Atlanta International Airport. Really, de-boarding the plane was just like all the other times I´ve exited an aircraft. Anti-climatic. Remember the days when people who loved you were allowed to wait at the gate? I had to take a shuttle from the airport to the hotel before I could get a hug. And the whole ride there, I talked incessantly at (not to) the Jamaican driver in hopes of dazzling him/someone/anyone with my¨I live abroad¨thing. He didn´t care. 24 hours earlier, when I´d taken the bus from my house in Santiago to the airport, I´d encountered something else apart from an apothetic chauffer. Sadness. Not the overwhelming kind, but a subtle, taste-in-the-mouth type. Even though I knew I was headed somewhere familiar, I felt the distinct wistfulness of change- an acute awareness of the passage of time and my inability to fully recover the exactness of my old life. I also knew that I was returning to Chile, thus greatening the distance between what used to be and what now is-(particularly in light of my recent decision to stay an additional year).

And then something strange happened.

You´d think that if you lived in a country for 23 years, 7 months away is hardly substancial to really shake up your habits. Wrong. Not only did I charge into the men´s bathroom on three separate occasions- (M is for Mujeres!)- I ordered coca-lights, showed up 20 minutes late for everything, and forgot that sweatpants does not an ensemble make if you´re looking to garner a few self-esteem lifting catcalls on the streets. Whoopsie.

Anyway, I´m back now, plugging away and enjoying the effortlessness with which a make-up-free face and t-shirt draws more attention than a Bellavista churro stand after midnight. Am I crazy for staying another year away from home? We´ll see.

Rude in Translation

Just the other day I was minding my own business in the teacher´s lounge when a Chilean professor-(Name Withheld)- came up behind me and announced, rather loudly, for me to get off the computer. ¨I´m sorry, what?¨I inquired politely, thinking I´d misunderstood. ¨Yes, you leave the computer now because I need to use it.¨ Taken aback by the bluntness of such a request, I gathered my belongings and moved to a nearby table, scowling all the way. Nevermind that I was as equally entitled to Gmail browsing as she was, but the unapologetic matter of factness in her deliverly left me with no option but to simply get up and move because she had said so. Now please thank you.

Fast forward a few days later to lunchtime and an order of delicious Chinese food. There I was, quietly consuming my meal when another Chilean employee- (Name Withheld)- marches up to the table, and in a fake whisper states that the odor of my food is disturbing the other working professors. I feigned confusion to buy some time against my urge to disturb her smirk with soy sauce. Moments later she returned with a bottle of disenfectant spray, which, for the record was far more odorous and irritating than any spring roll could ever hope to be. And where were the poor, disrupted professors during all this? Well, the one I presume that told on me was passively surfing the internet in the corner while two others, whom, coincidentally, happen to be close friends of mine, were snorting to themselves at their desks because the same thing had happened to them the day before.

You see, it`s not so much the occurence of these two events that bothers me, but the way in which they were addressed. Computers are full, you need to borrow one for a sec? Not a problem. Don´t want professors eating in the professor´s room? Fine. But when you´re used to dealing with professionals who use ¨Please¨ the way you learned to in grammar school, it`s a touch obnoxious to adjust to English speakers who think it`s a command.

Suddenly, phrases like ¨Will you help me?¨or¨Do you have a lighter?¨are orders, not questions. A friend of mine got an email from a non-native English speaker asking for some help with her resume, but instead of peppering the request with pleases and thank yous, the woman had opted for the following: ¨Since you and I are ¨friends,¨ you will do this for me.¨ Apparently, someone missed her class on air quotes and underlying sarcasm.

And then there was the Fork Incident.

I`ve been with my Chilean host family now for roughly 5 months and have yet to encounter any kind of drastic problem. In fact, I can pinpoint only one bleep on the radar of co-habitacion and of all the things in all the world for it to be about, it had to do with 3 forks. Or rather, the absence of such. I`d borrowed a few for lunch, (the lunch that I am not allowed to eat in the teacher´s lounge) and had exceeded my time limit for using them. That, and my host mother had noticed there were remnants of an additional fork--this one plastic--in her aji sauce. Really the latter was the cause of her furrowed brow, as she assumed I had not only broken a plastic fork, but sprinkled the pieces into the sauce so as to endanger her family's delicate esophagus'.  When I told her that actually, no, it was not I who treated her homeade condiment so carelessly, she made an odd face and re-stated her declaration with all the certainty one has when responding to ¨What is your name?¨ And so there I was, middle of the afternoon, arguing with a 65 year old Chilean woman half my size about a recyclable untensil. ¨How did I get here?¨I wondered. And then later at work--  after receiving an email from my boss demanding that all the gringos ¨Confirm her PLEASE on our understanding of her message because still there is much not knowing--¨What the hell do I sound like when I try to speak proper Spanish?¨

And these days I'm only asking this: Would you rather be offensive in translation or just lost?

To this day, the only kind of aji kept in the refridgerator is from a bottle.

Caira Goes to Another City.

I recently got back from a trip to Argentina, and mid-air during the return flight, I decided firmly on three things, each pertaining to why I now preferred Buenos Aires to Santiago.
1.) The men are more attractive.
2.) Everything is cheaper.
3.) The meat tastes better.
And so it went that I chanted these three new facts, (as well as several others) over and over in my tired head for the duration of the flight and well into the next morning. Forget that I´d been there for just 72 hours—I knew in those three days that this city I´d discovered was infinitely better than the one I´d been residing in for over four months. I couldn´t wait to book another ticket to go back and further explore the place I knew would eventually become one in which i resided. I envisioned myself living comfortably in one of the apartment buildings I´d seen near our hostel, and laboring professionally in one of the swank offices I´d seen near our hostel, and swilling cocktails at one of the tango bars that I´d seen, um, near our hostel. And with that final glorious vision of myself dancing the night away with a handsome stranger floating above my head, I ran snack into the profound and disappointing realization that I knew absolutely nothing about Buenos Aires. I knew it was in Argentina. And I could definitely find it on a map. Oh and I knew how to a take a taxi from the hostel to just about anywhere near the hostel. With a sad sigh I hung my head and accepted this new sense of deflation Of course I´d noticed the people were better looking. There were sixteen million of them to choose from, nearly triple the options available here in ol´Santiago. Buenos Aires trumphs through ratios alone. And it´s not like I kept a tally of all the ones I didn´t find enticing, (though there were plenty.) Then of course there were the lower prices I found so delightful, but without a moment´s attention as to how those prices originated (hello currency collapse!) and where they would be heading in the future. I just wanted to live there because it was exciting and different and it meant I didn´t have to come back and be a semi-adult in a city that was already familiar to me. A city that had seen me cry and sweat and grasp for understanding. A city where I had to sleep and work and budget my finances and ask for directions. A city, essentially, that I´d shed of its original plastic wrapping to get a real sense of it beneath the shiny facade of the box it came in. Now, instead of An Adventure in South America!, I was living in A Real Experience. One that wasn´t always particularly forgiving or kind, but one I´d legitimately sunk my teeth into and found satisfying pleasure in its hybrid of sweet and bitter tastes. I hadn´t even ridden the metro in Buenos Aires! We opted for cabs the whole weekend because ¨hey, we were on vacation.¨

So, here I am, stable and situated and, as of present, sans an Argentinian plane ticket. I´m sure I´ll go back, but the urgency to escape has lessened considerably in light of my exposed delusions—(well, in light of most of them. The meat is still better regardless of how close it was to my hostel.)

The Wine Spritzer of Fluency

A guy walks into a bar carrying a shot-glass in one hand and a pigeon in the other. ¨What´ll it be? ¨ says the bartender. ¨English, straight up.¨ The bartender fills his glass; three fingers, no ice. Two minutes later, another guy walks in, holding just an empty cup.

¨And what are you having, Sir?¨

The Second Guy´s been practicing so he responds proudly. ¨Why, yes, I´ll have just a little bit of English with a twist. On the rocks. Thank you.¨

This perplexes the Bartender and he looks to the First Guy for help. ¨Oh here, allow me,¨ he says, and releases the pigeon which immediately relieves itself into the glass.

The Second Guy is horrified and slams his drink down on the bar. ¨What kind of nonsense is this? I said I wanted SOME English! What do I have now, other than a load of useless sh*t?¨

The Bartender shrugs. ¨Same difference.¨

Now let´s pretend that instead of English, the two gentleman in question were in want of Spanish. And it wasn´t a bar they were visiting so much as it was an actual country. And now let´s freely admit that I´m representing Hombre Numero Dos and the bar is Chile. Where am I going with this? To the end of disillusionment, that´s where.

I´d like to believe that anytime someone goes to a new country/city/airport, he/she aims to develop a certain kind of rapport with the new surroundings. So if I arrived in Chile in February, then Santiago and I have been in a relationship for roughly four months. The honeymoon is over. And I fear it may have something to do with our lack of successful communication. What began as a giddy foray into the unknown is now a day-to-day reality awash in uncertainty and confusion.

We all had a friend or two in college who proclaimed her boyfriend was THE one—heck, we may have even been that person ourselves—and then that friend dated her significant other for two years and realized that what were cutesy flaws in the beginning of the relationship were more like impassable craters by the end. Sure, I speak a little, understand a little more, can read well on a good day. But there´s nothing suave about my delivery of double R´s or soft pronunciation of D´s. The sheepish face that goes with my ¨oh i just got here¨ bit has lost it´s touch. Apparently the explanation stales when used 90 days after its origination.

So now what? If Santiago itself were a real person, it´d be about that time to have The Talk—as in the one where it decides its fed up with my inability to express emotions or get into anything deep. Which can only mean that it must be time for me to beg for forgivness, swear I´ll do my best to change and promise all the stuff I (haven´t) said isn´t what I meant.

Mother Knows Best.

It´s a funny thing that happened when I came to Chile, and oddly enough, something I didn´t particularly notice until last weekend—more specifically, on Mother´s Day. (An unlikely foray into Chilean culture, but bear with me)

So, mothers. As of their most recent celebration, the one that birthed me was roughly 5,000 miles away and not picking up my calls, while the one assigned to me had just finished folding my clothes, (which coincidentally, she had also laundered earlier in the day.) I´m 24. The last time my mother folded anything for me was probably right after she wished me a happy 11th birthday. And by no means did I have a rough go of it as a child. When I decided to come to Chile, one of my cited justifications was how much of a ¨learning experience¨it would be, how chock full of life lessons, and how inevitably, time spent in this country would help me grow and mature as a person. So what exactly am I doing in a place where ¨Mommy¨ still cleans my room? Good question.

This isn´t the first time I´ve pondered such. About two months ago I was at a party and asked to borrow a sweatshirt from the host to counter the quick drop in temperature. Once he led me to his room, the appallment that would have otherwise formed in response to his immediate advances was quickly re-directed to his closet. Or more like, AT his closet and the blatancy with which it practically screamed, ¨I am color-coded according to his mother´s preferences!¨ Did he bat an eye? Cower in embarassment because I discovered his secret? Of course not. In an ironic twist of perspective, it was I who ended up making the sheepish apology—two of them actually: one for the host, for laughing (loudly) at how nice his crisply ironed shirts looked hanging in a row, and the second for my own Chilean mama, because I forgot to pick my shoes up off the floor before I went out and she had to move them in order to vacuum under my bed.

Like I said, I originally came to Santiago to wisen up and experience life outside of my comfort zone. Now I sleep in a twin bed with a patterned quilt and drink chocolate milk out of single-serving cardboard cartons. I point at things I don´t know how to pronounce and most of my comings and goings from my place of residence are met with joyous exclamations. If I do something correctly, my host parents laugh good-heartedly and assure me I´m well on my way. If I do something wrong, my host parents laugh good-heartedly and assure me I´ll do better next time. Who would have thought I´d end up with a sitcom-childhood at age 24? And now...Well, I don´t know. But maybe these next seven months spent aging in the Spanish equivalent of a Full House episode will produce a healthy adult, one who´s wise enough to never judge the unfamiliar, and more importantly, one who´s learned to laugh off the irony of it all.

Ah, must´ve forgot to pack it in my carry-on...

You know how it goes. You´re bored at work, staring at the floor and/or scanning perezhilton.com for ´news´ when you realize that if you had to choose between another year of Google surfing or 365 days in a foreign country whose language you don´t speak, laboring in a profession you´ve never experienced...well, easy. You choose the latter. Now the problem is, you never fully decide if this sojourn abroad is a vacation or a job and therefore packing becomes a bit of an issue. And by packing, I mean what kind of principles you should take with you. Things like good judgment, discretion, and um...all the rest. It´s not like I left them ALL at home, but I´ve yet to conclude if the old rules need not apply to my new country, or whether I´m just a foreign idiot in a strange, strange land. Allow me to explain...

Weeks ago, I found myself engaged in conversation with a highly attractive German traveler who was en route to Montevideo. We´d been speaking for roughly 45 minutes when he proposed that I meet him in Uruguay the following weekend. Instead of laughing uproariously and disappearing to make fun of him with my friends for the rest of the night, I nodded rapidly in earnest agreement. Sure! I exclaimed. I would love to! I shouted. After all, wasn´t Uruguay on my to-do list, and wouldn´t it be better to have a seasoned veteran show me the ropes instead of emptily promising myself that I would go see it at some point? Now, before I give my mother a heart attack, allow me to confirm that I did not go to Uruguay. In fact, I never saw the German again. But the point of all this is that albeit however briefly, there was a moment where I actually considered going to meet this person in Uruguay. Things like his age, (he was a good ten years older than I,) his occupation (questionable) and his status as a mentally stable, non-perverse human being (unconfirmed, I never got his last name) were hastily shoved off the table of necessities to make room for my cup of ¨oh, i´m so cool and laidback i´ll just go to montevideo for the weekend¨nonchalance. In retrospect, only one word comes to mind. Why?

I could chalk it up to a brief lapse in judgment, and the fact that I was won over by his good looks and affable charm. Or I could admit to being completely careless and irresponsible for not only talking to complete strangers, but blindly agreeing to accompany them to foreign countries. Or, I could shrug my shoulders and offer the following line with a sheepish grin: ¨I´m from out of town.¨ It must´ve happened on the flight down here. Somewhere between Miami and Lima, I developed an involutary reaction to my own mis-behavior. I´m much more forgiving of my stupidity than I used to be. Say I cut three people off in line trying to buy peanuts. ¨They´ll get over it,¨ I reassure myself amidst the screaming. ¨I don´t live here all the time.¨ ¨Forget to look twice before crossing the street? ¨Where I´m from, Pedestrians have the right away.¨ And my new favorite, as I´m sprinting to my classroom 45 seconds before it´s supposed to start- ¨What are they gonna do, fire me?¨ (Consider the above documentation of my foolishness, not advocacy.)

They say acceptance of what is is one of the first signs of the slow and painful adjustment into a new culture. Is it acceptable that I no longer feel guilty for pointing at menu items when I don´t know how to pronounce their name? Sure. Is it acceptable that I often say ¨yes, please, or thank you¨ to all questions for which I know no other way to respond? Why not? And is it acceptable to validate questionable behavior with ¨this doesn´t count because it´s not in my language?¨ Maybe not. Good luck with your packing.

Involuntary Pololafication

Let´s say I was to call you up in Atlanta, Georgia and ask you out on a date. If you were interested, (and you have to be, because this is my hypothetical game), you´d say yes and we´d go out a few days later and then maybe I would call you a few days after that and maybe you would pick up because you thought there was a chance you might like me but you weren´t sure and you didn´t want to seem obvious and plus you didn´t know if I was calling because I felt like I had to call to be polite or if I was calling because I really wanted to call and even if it was because I wanted to call, one phone call doesn´t really mean anything anyway. You get my drift.

Now let´s imagine this entire scenario happens in Chile. What? You can´t picture it? That´s right you can´t! You know why? Because something like that would never happen in Chile! If I was to call and ask you out and you picked up the phone more than once, why, tada! You´re my boyfriend! I hope you don´t have any plans the rest of the month, because your nights and weekends should be kept free for the time I want to spend with you. Oh, and I´m going to keep calling until I get ahold of you. I may even call back to back, because Caller ID means nothing to me and if you don´t answer the first 6 times, I feel certain I can wear you down with ring 147. And besides, I have your email address.

Now don´t get me wrong. There are exceptions to everything and I´m sure there are plenty of non-committal, uninterested daters wandering around the city somewhere, but for the most part, ¨play it cool¨isn´t a phrase that´s been translatable. There´s nothing wrong with this, but coming from a country where 6 months of regular interaction with a person of romantic interest does not a relationship make, I´m a bit reluctant to jump on board with the idea that 2 phone calls = true love. A mis-placed text message here and there and you´ve got yourself a brand new pololo - (boyfriend, for the non-Chilean speakers) It´s true. Apparently, it is actually possible to meet, go out, and consequentially have to break up with someone after the alarming realization that they´ve branded you as their girlfriend in the course of 4 days. For those of you living in the United States, scoff as you will, but just ask resident expert Meredith Hutcheson. A couple hours of sightseeing and she had an invite to the Mothership of status formations: a family wedding.

So now to ponder what´s more bizarre: The shameless way in which these South American men profess their feelings after a few songs on the dance floor, or the revulsion we North American females experience when such makes an open effort to court us. Muy interesante.

If I knew, I'd tell you.

I wouldn't go so far as to admit to being a biased cultural a**hole, but the past two weeks have proved it is rather impossible not to indulge in the "my country is better than your country" thought process, even if I do feel guilty when it happens. Technically, it's not so much a process as it is an inaudible hum I use after someone cuts in front of me in the third line at the Express Market, or when a bus driver purposely rips the wrong ticket so I have to pay for a whole new "return" portion of my trip. I'm not ready to silkscreen a t-shirt with the slogan or anything but there are a lot of things I don't "get". Like:
-The guy who rides his bicycle up and down Monjitas with a cart full of propane tanks attached to the back that he bangs on with a stick. I'm 96% positive he isn't selling anything, so I don't know what the stick noise is for. I don't know what the propane is for either.
-The garbage collectors who feel that 1am, 2 am, 4:30am and 4:55am are acceptable times to rifle through the glass bottles and metal cans outside on the street, cussing all the while and riling the stray dogs who have at last decided to cease fighting. Then again, if I had to collect glass bottles at 4:30am, I would probably cuss too. The real question is who deployed these hard working civillians to collect the damn garbage at multiple times during the same night in the first place?
-The line(s) at Casa Royale-a.k.a the place to buy voltage adapters and such. I'm reminded of the age-old question, "how many _ does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" Except here, it's more like "how many cash registers does it take to buy a 2-prong outlet?" 3. At the first, you declare what you want and get a ticket. At the second, you give away your ticket and some of your money, but receive another ticket. At the third, you give away your second ticket and get what you ordered. And if you bought the wrong thing, which is probable if you're me and don't always know what you're saying or is being said to you, then you have to undo all of the above and re-wait in all 3 lines.
-Why C-list 80's pop is the rock of choice at a crowded bar on a Friday night. Or rather, why the DJ would choose to cut the Chilean dance music in favor of 2 sweaty guitarists who can play ACDC and not much else.
Illogisitics aside, I love this city. It's big and sprawling and dirty and I'm oddly fascinated with the way everything works because it defies every functional sense of working I've ever understood. Last week we visited the site of a former political prisoner camp that is now a memorial park honoring those who died in a context of deep and hideous illogic. Most notably, there was an empty pool that had not been filled since the memorial was erected. Our guide said there have been rumors that the pool was once full of human excrement. But only rumors. In truth, he explained, the pool was for family and friends of the military captors to come and sunbathe. One wonders what is worse: To wade in excrement, or listen to the voices of careless sunbathers from a locked 1Mx1M wooden cell? I imagine the real horror exists for those who had to make such a distinction.
So what now? I don't have the answers to my questions, nor do I expect to. At Villa Grimaldi, there is a rubix-cube-like building that balances perfectly on one of its side edges. Literally, its physical position defies the laws of scientific rationality, but for the very point of illustrating the un-sense of what happened in recent decades with Chile's political history. And if my time here thus far has taught me anything, it's to accept this country's inexplicable essence with the very ambiguity in which it delivers it. (I don't get it either, but I think that must be the point).

Things I`ve Learned So Far...

One might think that travel time from Miami International Aiport to Santiago, Chile could not possibly exceed 15 hours. One might also think that any animal lying motionless on the sidewalk could never be offered as a gift for friends and family. Furthermore, such a thinker may be so inclined to regard toilet paper as an obligation rather than the personal preference of janitorial suppliers. One will be wrong. On all accounts. Welcome to Chile.

After a snappy 5-hour layover in Lima, Peru, which, coincidentally, followed a 1.5 hour layover in Costa Rica before the 3.5 hour flight to Peru, we boarded the plane for the last 4.5 hour leg of our flight into Santiago. Logisitics aside, (after all, why not fly to Costa Rica from Miami first? Thanks TACA airlines) the journey down to Chile wasn`t all that bad. In fact, I may have even giddily regarded it as entertaining. And now that I´ve been here for over a week, the details of the arrival are fading and I´m far more concerned with lessons learned affecting the here and now. Like the toilet paper and prevalence of dead animals, for instance.

You may or may not find my first few days worth of knowledge interesante, but regardless, here they are:
1.)Can't flush toilet paper in Latin American toilets. Not the ones I can afford anyway. I thought I was cultural when I had to use a public toilet in France. Now I know better.
2.)Speaking of toilet paper, I've learned it`s better to verify its presence in the bathroom before doing one's business. Sometimes these Chilean folk dont feel the need or urgency to keep any in the bathroom at all, or they might just keep it in a paper towel bin beside the sink so you have to grab the sheets before you enter the stall. Can be problematic.
3.)There are lots of stray dogs that I feel sorry for but not enough to pet or bring back to the hostel. They tend to look mutt-y and lay around on the sidewalks. Occasionally one will bark and wag it`s tail, but is usually forgotten about by the time the next mangy one makes an appearance. A few nights ago, I was sitting on a bench waiting for my friend to buy cigarettes when a little girl and her grandmother approached us and pointed at a still puppy that I believe they were suggesting we purchase. When I politely explained to them that it wasnt breathing, (or moving for God sakes) the grandma reassured that "Oh no, he rest now, but he play much." Right.
4.) Don`t worry dog-lovers. Cats get shafted here too. Supposedly the stray dogs eat them when they need a snack. I`ve seen one live cat, but with about 15 minutes left in said life.
5.) 3 years of middle school spanish, 4 years of highschool spanish, and 2.5 years of college spanish are not enough to speak Spanish. Or understand Spanish. Or even sign Spanish. They are enough to qualify you to wear a sign on your head that says ``Speak slowly. I no know.`` Fortunately, we got a list of curse and dirty words so that when our students insult us either to our face or behind our back, we`ll understand. Sort of. Stay tuned for Week 2.